Inside the Machine

Inside the Machine

I couldn't breathe. Inside the machine it was dark and calm. Peaceful. And yet I couldn't breathe. I could think only of her.

She needed me. More than anything, I could not let her down. How would she live without me? I couldn't go.

But I panicked. I wept. I screamed. The machine was deafening, yet it couldn't drown out my thoughts. My fears. The crumbling of my hopes and dreams. She needed me.

They took me out, told me it was going to be alright. But they didn't know - and they didn't believe it. It was supposed to be fifteen minutes. That's what the man had said, “Fifteen minutes.” It had to have been thirty, at least. "Halfway done!" the man cheered. After the shot, he put me back in.

I breathed. Slowly. In and out, over and over again. Feeling paralyzed, the fear went hazy, like it was above water and I beneath. The sound of the machine became comforting, like a mother's heartbeat lulling me to sleep. I couldn't go...I couldn't go. . . I couldn't go. . ..

I awoke under a bright light. There was movement and sound, but I was alone. Finally I came to, at least enough to understand. I stopped the man. "Is someone coming to get me?"

"Of course sir, I've already called."

That I waited there in the hallway another twenty minutes exposed his lie, but allowed me time to think. Not calmly, but more so than before. The MRI certainly confirmed what we already knew. I was 32, and I had just suffered a stroke. I could not let the stroke win. I had to conquer it. My daughter's extra twenty-first chromosome demanded it. I had to triumph.

And I did.